Archive for the 'Dragon Quest Monsters' Category
Stuff
November 10, 2009
The last news update scored over 100 comments, so I guess you guys deserve another one. Next update will happen if this news gets over 9000 comments.
Progress has been steady on most fronts. The Project Overview page has been updated, but here is a run-down of the most important developments:
Super Robot Wars J
Editing is complete! Deets did an exceptional job in finishing the whole mammoth script in such a timely fashion. Now he moved on to work on editing images (he has a talent for that too!). Notice the “Shield Defense” graphic in the screenshots next to this. There are only very few images left to edit (and hack). This project is really close to being done now. Beta testing should commence within the next few weeks. (No we don’t need any testers, thanks).
Super Robot Wars F
Speaking of super robots, F did also make a huge leap in progress since the last time. Tyria is almost done translating, all that’s left are a few entries in the character database (Bonus content giving an overview of the characters and shows that appear in the game). Once he is done he will start to get cracking at SRW FF soon. In case you didn’t know - SRWF is only the first half of the story, F Final tells the other half. You can import your end savegame from the first game and carry over all stats, money and items to the new game. A translation of F alone would be pretty unsatisfying, but don’t worry, we will translate both.
Since the script is in such an advanced stage, Kingcom also started hacking the menues and made good progress. The project should get even more attention once J is released. By the way, Deets also signed up for editing again and already edited the first scenario! Rock on Deets!
Oriental Blue & DQM 1+2
This project is also progressing smoothly. More menues are done, what’s left are mostly minigames. Tom edited the script like 20 times in the meanwhile too, so it should be pretty polished. Speaking of Tom, the script of DQM 1 is completely translated. Kingcom also started hacking many menues. I played it for a bit already, and the first game is really quite playable already. More progress on this one is on the back-burner though until Oriental Blue is finished.
Tales of Innocence
The Tales of Innocence project is also going absolutely great. The script translation was finally completely finished a few days ago! After a massive marathon session of translating the last skit was translated well ahead of schedule. The script is being edited now. Another project that should enter beta testing very soon.
Kingcom also spend a great deal of time on his assembler called armips. While working on our projects over the years it was clear that goldroad/spasm and the other available assemblers for our target platforms were shit. So he wrote his own! After a ton of features were added he finally made a public release some weeks back, you can read about it (and download it if you like) at this thread. You can also see the feature list there and leave feedback if you like. I’m sure he’ll be glad to know if any other soul besides him uses it.
That’s it for now. There probably won’t be another news update until a release is ready (the 9000 comments thing was a joke). I’m sure though this time it won’t be another three months. Stay tuned.
Posted by KaioShin at 9:35pm
48 Comments »
News Round-Up and a Little Request
August 01, 2009
Dear readers, this will be a BIG update. Not only do we have lot’s of news, no, to commemorate the event we also have a ton of pretty pictures to look at. We hope you enjoy them.
First off, we have a new project to announce, one that should please especially our long-time fans who are with us since this was just my personal little site about my newb attempts at hacking Caravan Heart.
Dragon Quest Monsters 1+2 (PSX Remake)
The hacking is currently being handled by Kingcom and none other than Tom (who also translated Caravan Heart) is working on the translation part of it. So far the project is already going very smoothly. As you can see in the screenshots a VWF is already implemented and working. Menu hacking is a different beast and will surely cause some headaches later on, but when did we ever let that stop us? I’ve been told the translation is progressing smoothly, although Tom will be moving to get a new job soon, so progress might slow down for a few months.
Xenosaga I+II DS
Yes we know, it’s been ages since we talked about this one. Translation is steadily going forward though and we also got a help offer from another translator, so things might move along even faster soon, if the original translator gives the OK. Here are some screenshots of translated scenes from the game:
Oriental Blue
Oriental Blue has been completely translated for a little while now. The news about that was eaten by the server crash, so here it is again. Kingcom also continued hacking work on it, so it’s getting closer to completion all the time. There is still a fair bit of stuff to be done (lot’s of minigames that’ll surely require lot’s of annoying image hacking) but this project is propably the second closest to completion apart from SRWJ. Speaking of which, it’s still in editing. We now started to edit the chapter graphics too.
Anyway… back to Oriental Blue. Yeah it’s going great and to apologize for the lost news entry here is a bunch of screenshots:
Devil Children - Ice Book
This one has also been translated for quite a while already, but the hacking of this game can only be described as a neverending nightmare. So don’t give me too much flak for slacking off on this one. It will be finished though, even if I’ll lose my soul in the process (not unlikely). We noticed we never showed any menu screenshots of this game either, so enjoy these. I paid for every single correctly menu label and every single correctly printed string with blood.
Tales of Innocence
Absolute Zero’s throughhim413 made a few special progress reports. Instead of just writing about it, he created two videos with commentary by himself. Pretty neat, be sure to check them out:
And before you ask, no I won’t do such a thing for any projects here. My accent is why too thick for you to understand anything anyway =P
Also… Could anyone create a new site theme for us?
Together with this news, the Project Overview page has also been updated. There has been some, ehm, critique, that we shouldn’t make such a page if we don’t update it often. It’s purpose is not to give you 0.01% exact live updates updated directly whenever we receive 2kB of text from one of our translators. The page is intended for new visitors who want to get a overview over all the projects combined into one page instead of reading up on all the news entries of the last two years. In that spirit we’ll probably update it only when we also have a front-page news like this.
Last but not least, we have a little request from you. We’d really like to have a new theme for the website. Is there a fan out there with webdesign talent who could help us out with this? Both Kingcom and I are pretty much n00bs when it comes to web stuff. As you can see on the Xenosaga screenshots, the current theme has some problems with pictures for example. 800×600 really isn’t up-to-date anymore, we’d really like a 1024×768 optimized design. There isn’t much we can offer in exchange for any help, other than access to our betas when they are done (might still be a few months off before we get to the first).
It would really be kick ass if someone could create something for us. We don’t have any fixed ideas on how it should like, I guess the only parameters are that it’s a Wordpress theme, compatible with the newest version of Wordpress and that it should handle pictures better than our current layout. Leave us a comment with a valid mail address if you’d like to help.
That’s it for today, thanks guys and look forward to more news whenever it’s ready.
Posted by KaioShin at 12:43pm
108 Comments »
Caravan Heart Release
March 16, 2008
After 2 years of dedicated work, we’re proud to present the complete English translation of Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart.
I’d like to thank everyone on the team and everyone who contributed over the years for their support. I’d also like to thank all of the fans who left encouraging comments for us and who believed in this project until the end.
Please read the release notes bundled with the patch. They don’t just contain ‘boring’ technical information but also lots of background information about the game and the translation as well as some notes from our translator.
There was also a huge website update. I’ve created a Project Page for the game, where you can find many nice surprises. Make sure to check it out! I know though that you all just want the patch for now. Have fun!
Posted by KaioShin at 3:57pm
84 Comments »
Beta status reached
January 19, 2008
Finally, after 2 years of work, the project reached Beta!
After the game has been thoroughly tested and everything has been fixed, it’ll be time for the public release. Don’t ask how long beta testing will take though, it can take pretty long since this game is huge and so random. There is still some work left ahead of us.
Also, testers have already been selected, so don’t ask to be part of the beta please.
Wish us luck and that everything goes well. This will propably be the last post before release, unless there will be significant delays.
Posted by KaioShin at 11:19pm
32 Comments »
Preview Video
January 12, 2008
A little surprise gift for all of you - a preview video of the game! It will give you an impression on how the game looks, how reforming monsters works and about the amount of translation work already done. Sorry for the asynch sound, youtube apparently did that during conversion. I’m sure you’ll love it anyway. (No spoilers of any sort of course!)
By the way, did you continue visiting the project thread over at RHDN? KC and I have been releasing screenshots and progress updates there daily! It’s worth taking a look if you haven’t already.To give you an overview:
- Many many more menus done
- Formatting revised up to Chapter 5 of the game
- Many bugs fixed
- Awesome character naming screen, thanks to Djinn
- Modified title screen is inserted into the game, thanks to tomaitheous
- Lots of behind the scenes stuff you wouldn’t understand anway
Posted by KaioShin at 12:44am
24 Comments »
Merry Christmas
December 24, 2007
Merry Christmas everyone!
I hope you’ll all find lot’s of presents under your Christmas trees.
As a little Christmas present I have some really awesome news for you:
Formatting is finally complete!
Thanks to the efforts of KC and myself the whole 2MB beast is now formatted and already inserted into the game too. I’m currently working on the numerous menu screens of the game. There is a ton of them, so it’ll take a while. After that there will be an internal testing phase to purge the worst formatting problems.
As a bonus, there is now also a project thread on Romhacking.net, with many screenshots and general information. Be sure to pay it a visit and keep an eye on it in the future. Updates I consider too small for this site I’ll most likely post there first.
Official Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart Project Thread
Posted by KaioShin at 6:43pm
6 Comments »
More Dragon Quest News
December 13, 2007
Formatting is coming along pretty nice thanks to KC’s help. Yesterday I talked to Aerdan on #romhacking.net about the formatting and he offered me to try to write an auto formatter. You propably remember that I said it would be pretty much impossible to write one. Well, it IS pretty much impossible to write one which will have a complete file perfectly finished with one click. It’s very possible though to do at least some partly formatting automatically, reducing the time needed to finish a file immensely.
He actually went right to work too and greeted me today with a first test version. There are some small issues to be ironed out, but it’s already very helpful as it is. I think this will accelerate formatting a good deal further.
Moreover, I started working on another aspect of the translation. The pictures. There are chapter titlescreens in the game, which needed some attention. I located and extracted the pictures in the ROM and put them up on Romhacking.net for editing. Unfortunately I suck at image editing of any kind myself. But as always, you can count on the fine people over at RHDN. Ryusui edited the pictures for me and did a very fine job with it. Here is the first chapter’s title as a little teaser.
I still have to rewrite some code to ensure they all work in the game correctly. The game uses one tilemap to display all chapter title’s while my edited ones will have different tilemaps each. So I have to change the code so it loads the correct tilemap at a time. Nothing big, but it isn’t really interesting either. Anyway, progress is progress.
Until next time, I hope to have more good news for you before Christmas.
Posted by KaioShin at 11:40pm
12 Comments »
Good news
December 05, 2007
I have some good news for you, the project just got a good boost in the right direction.
KC from SoR-GTs translations will be joining me with the remaining formatting and most likely later on with the testing. This means that together we can progress with the formatting twice as fast as if I’d do it alone. Since he is a fellow romhacker I also don’t have to spend most of my time with teaching him how to do it, like I had to the last time I asked others for help with the formatting. Our cooperation already led to some interesting technical discussions. He made me aware of a flaw in my formatting style so far. I’ll have to go back through the files I already formatted and redo a few things, but the translation will look much nicer in the end.
It looks like it’ll be a busy december.
On other news, I currently have a cold and university sucks >_> I’m already spending so much time at home again instead of going to university I wonder if I’ll make any finals this year T_T
Posted by KaioShin at 11:36am
6 Comments »
Well…
October 22, 2007
Still formatting along slowly but steadily. University is in full gears again so I’m bogged down a little. I just wanted to post that you shouldn’t worry if there aren’t so frequent updates now - there is just nothing to show or tell. At the current pace formatting a file will take around 2 weeks, so there is more than enough work left.
By the way, considering the speed I’m afraid I won’t be able to complete this by the end of the year. Formatting alone will propably take 3 months or so, with all menu hacking and testing work to remain.
*Sigh*
Don’t let this discourage you, progress is made almost every day, the game will come.
And as always, thanks for all your comments. I really appreciate every single one of them.
Posted by KaioShin at 7:06pm
12 Comments »
Going on…
October 12, 2007
A little progress update for you guys.
Formatting continued at a constant pace. I’ve now ~470kB of text roughly formatted and inserted. Last I did was the huge file with all text relating to shops and such stuff, it was 130kB. Just as a comparison, most NES era games don’t even have that much text on the whole. Of course those shops are heavily menu based and need to be modified by a great deal later on.
I promised you a screenshot last time, so here is one. It shows how a menu looks unless I fix it manually. This isn’t due to the text formatting, that’s fine. I have to modify all menues due to the way the menues are programmed.
Another note, when I formatted this I wasn’t sure how many digits the numbers are going to have. Now that I know they won’t go over three digits I will propably change it so that the text is in a single line.
That’s it for now, I hope you are as excited as I am^^ Next week university starts again for me, so I’ll have less time for hacking, but I’ll try to continue investing at least an hour every day into it. Until next time!
Posted by KaioShin at 4:31pm
8 Comments »